


Nobody's Property

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Branding, Community: dw_50ficathon, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:39:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Ace; they’re not easily containable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody's Property

**Author's Note:**

> For Hurt/Comfort Bingo square “branding”. Also my entry for 1988 in dw_50ficathon.

“Keep still, Ace!” The Doctor pulled her back down beside him onto the level floor of the cell, unimpressed with her insistence on trying to stand again.

She frowned at him. “What is it?”

“Your arm,” he said, with a nod towards her. “Let me see it.”

Ace only stared. “You what?”

“Your arm, Ace.” Then he gave her a smile. “You’ve got two of them, one on each side. Useful things, handy even. Now, let me look.”

Ace shrugged off her bomber jacket, but she wrinkled her nose in protest. “It doesn’t hurt, Professor. It was only a jab. I’m not a _baby_.”

“It wasn’t just a jab,” said the Doctor, rolling up the sleeve of her top, and peering closely at the tiny mark on her arm. “You have, in accordance with the usual rites and practices of such exchanges on Kalos, been branded as the property of our friend Girandr.”

Abruptly, Ace stopped arguing. “You mean – like a slave or something? But that’s –”

“Yes,” he said, with a world of darkness in his voice. “Exactly like that, Ace. And now, if you do anything he doesn’t want, or don’t do what you’re told, or if you cross the boundary line of his estate trying to escape, then this unpleasant little device they’ve embedded in your arm will activate.”

“And that’s bad?”

“It’ll release a toxin into your bloodstream.”

“Gordon Bennett.”

“So, keep still, and let me extract it before you annoy anyone.”

Ace thought about that, quieter than usual for the moment. “Professor. Isn’t removing it bound to be one of those things I’m not supposed to do?”

“I’d say so, yes.”

“So, there’s a good chance you could set it off?”

The Doctor looked up at her. “Not if I’m very, very careful.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” she said, attempting to be cheerful. “You almost had me worried for a minute there.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” said the Doctor, his attention focused on the mark on her arm.

“Anyway,” she muttered, “I’m nobody’s property, ‘specially not that bilgebag. And – it’d be quick, right? Doctor? If it went wrong, I mean?”

He glanced at her again, before fishing in his pockets for something. “Quite.” Then he produced, triumphant, a darning needle and a pair of tweezers. “Aha! Perfect.”

“You have got to be joking. Doctor!”

The Doctor tapped her nose. “Have faith, Ace. Anyway, people who make these high-tech devices tend to get above themselves – they forget there are plenty of simple low-tech solutions. And, no, I’m afraid it wouldn’t.”

“What?”

“Be quick,” he said. “There’s nothing civilised about this, I assure you.” He also pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, and laid it down on the cell floor, putting his unconventional instruments on the cloth. 

Ace pulled a face. “Don’t know why I asked.”

“Look on the bright side,” said the Doctor. “It means if things go wrong, I might just have time to find the antidote.”

She relaxed slightly. “You mean there is one?”

“Yes, well –” He looked at her and then shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Great. That means there’s something even worse you’re not telling me. I can take it, Professor. What is it?”

“It’s painful,” he said. “Very. However, that won’t trouble us, as long as you’re a model patient and do everything your Doctor tells you and –”

“Try not to yell when you go stabbing me with blooming great darning needles?”

“Quite,” said the Doctor. “Precisely. No screaming in the operating theatre, no running – and absolutely no blowing up the surgeon. If you’re very good, I might give you a sticker afterwards.”

“I never get to have any fun.” Ace took a deep breath and turned her head away from him, staring at the grey wall. “Well, get on with it, then.”

“I am.”

Ace frowned. “So how come I can’t feel anything?”

“I do know a trick or two,” said the Doctor, and he smiled at her, even though she was still looking away from him. He knew she’d know. “Not complaining, surely?”

“I’d have been okay,” said Ace. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Good,” he said. “Because once I’ve disarmed it, I’ll have to prise it out – and that _will_ hurt.”

Ace nodded, and then started on listing all the things she was going to do to that toerag Girandr if she ever saw him again and how lucky it’d be for him if she didn’t. 

“Quite right,” he said, absently, concentrating on the delicate business of removing the device without harming her. He’d only done this once before, and last time he’d had the proper Arcadian multi-purpose hand tool _and_ the sonic screwdriver. Still, he knew how it worked and there was something to be said for the old-fashioned approach, wasn’t there? But even though he couldn’t help regarding it as a fascinating little problem, he held his breath as he continued, because he also couldn’t forget what he was doing and whose life he was playing with. If it went wrong, there was no way she wouldn’t be badly hurt. They both would be.

He gripped the edge of the tiny device with the tweezers and carefully disarmed it with the darning needle. It required accuracy to hit the right connection without causing it to activate it, but accuracy was his middle name – or, no, it wasn’t, that would be silly – and luck was usually on his side. Ninety-eight per cent of the time at least, anyway. He left the needle in place, and then looked at Ace again. “Now, Ace.”

“What?”

“Well, if I was actually a medical doctor, this is the part where I’d tell you it isn’t going to hurt a bit.”

“You mean it isn’t going to hurt a bit, it’s going to hurt a lot?”

“Correct!” he said. “Ready?”

Ace nodded, and gritted her teeth in preparation, as he resorted to ripping the device out of her arm. He felt her flinch under him, but she didn’t yell out. She’d bitten her lip and gone white, but that was all. 

The Doctor dropped the unpleasant little thing onto the floor and took up his waiting hanky and bound up the wound. It was shallow, but bleeding busily enough. That should do it, though, he thought.

“That was it? You’ve got it?” she said, twisting round to try and look.

He knotted the ends of the handkerchief as tightly as he could. “I have,” he said, and then rested a hand on her shoulder. “In fact, the moment you feel up to it, you can blow a hole in that wall and get us out of here. Preferably alive, mind, Ace.”

“Just you watch,” said Ace, getting to her feet, pausing only to stamp on the device before she fished around for a can of nitro. “We’re going to stop them, aren’t we? They won’t do this to anyone else, not after I’ve finished with them!”

The Doctor scrambled backwards, hanging onto his hat. “Well, I don’t seem to have anything else in my diary – how about you?”

“I think I can fit it in somehow,” she said, attaching the nitro to the wall, while he crawled under the bed. “Just got to finish this bit of demolition work first!”

He smiled to himself. “Without blasting us to smithereens, I trust?”

“I’ll do my best, Professor.” She dived under the bed next to him, and they hung onto each other as the wall exploded outwards, leaving a gaping hole inside it.

He beamed at her and tapped her nose. “Aha, the emergency exit at last. Splendid!”

“And now we nail that bilgebag?”

“I think it’s about time, don’t you?” he said, as they ran out hand in hand, heading away through the smoke, dust and debris. _That’s my girl_ , he thought, and surprised himself at the depth of affection and pride that went along with it.


End file.
